OMB quizzing agencies on Clinger-Cohen

The Office of Management and Budget will meet with senior officials in the

agencies covered by the Clinger-Cohen Act to determine how far along they

are in developing an agencywide view of their information technology investments.

The meetings over the next two months will include each agency's chief

information officer, chief financial officer, head budget officer and head

procurement executive to get input from each area of an agency affected

by IT investment, Lauren Uher, an official with OMB's Office of Federal

Procurement Policy, said Thursday.

Last month, Sens. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.),

the respective chairman and ranking member of the Senate Governmental Affairs

committee, sent out letters to all 24 Clinger-Cohen agencies asking them

to detail how far along they are in implementing the act, which calls for

agencies to apply private-sector discipline on federal IT expenditures.

OMB also announced last year that its annual report to Congress under

the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act would focus on IT.

Agencies have until May 18 to respond to the letters, and the FASA reports

are due later this spring, so OMB's meetings with the agency representatives

are primarily to ensure that everyone is on the same page, Uher said at

the General Services Administration's annual Trail Boss Roundup in Williamsburg,

Va.